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Wiki Starship As A Space Station (with engines) Discussion
- Thread starter mongo
- Start date
That certainly wouldn't be NASA's first time down that road. Around 1980 they did a study about turning Space Shuttle external tanks into a space station. Nothing came of it, of course.
And Skylab was basically a converted Atlas V second stage, and that did actually launch back in the early 70's...That certainly wouldn't be NASA's first time down that road. Around 1980 they did a study about turning Space Shuttle external tanks into a space station. Nothing came of it, of course.
It seems like an obvious thing to do.
No flaps, no TPS, since it will never return to Earth.
In place of the flaps, 4 extendable solar arrays, and cover most of the crew and cargo sections with solar cells (like on Dragon).
It could be about 10m longer than the current prototype Starships, providing more volume in the crew/cargo pressurized section (Elon has mentioned that is a design goal).
Include in-orbit refueling capability so that it can maintain orbit, and when it reaches the end of its useful life, blast it out of orbit (since it won’t burn up on re-entry).
No sea-level Raptors needed, right? Just 3 RVac engines.
Fit it out with two docking ports.
Lots of windows!
The ISS cost somewhere between $75 to $150 billion to construct, depending on how you calculate the cost of related programs. A Starship Station would cost a small fraction of that, I would guess. $5 billion? 10?
If NASA doesn’t move forward with this, a private company or a consortium of private companies will to create a ”space hotel”. I know that Axiom has plans for their own but this would offer so much more volume.
Except that a Starship isn't ever a station. ISS is a station because it lacks propulsion. Starship is a spaceship. If it wants to loiter in orbit for months on end, that's fine, but it is a mobile vehicle. I agree that there's no need for reentry capabilities because, again, it's a spaceship. It goes to places in space. LEO, geostationary orbit, lagrange points, the Moon, wherever. I would just hope that it's not like "mobile homes", where it promises mobility but nobody ever goes anywhere in it.
If there is a stationary component to all this, it could be a docking module that allows multiple Starships to join with each other. It has no abilities of its own; it just facilitates joining the Starships together. Take a cube and allow a Starship to dock on each face. Such a module would sit in orbit perpetually, boosted as needed by a Starship. Any two Starships should be able to dock tip to tip, but the cube would allow up to 6 Starships at the same time. Make it large enough and you can get many more docked to it. It might even facilitate propellant transfers.
From the NASA website
Though the ISS sometimes has propulsion capabilities when certain vehicles are docked to it, but obviously those capabilities are extremely limited and restricted to orbit raising maneuvers only.
Of course the first step is just to place one ship in LEO, verify it can function as intended, and then perfect in-orbit prop transfer. Joining multiple ships is a whole other level of complexity.
Sure, that makes sense, assuming that in-orbit refueling is available (and of course we know that SpaceX plans to achieve that capability, sense it is critical for Starship operations beyond LEO).
Though the ISS sometimes has propulsion capabilities when certain vehicles are docked to it, but obviously those capabilities are extremely limited and restricted to orbit raising maneuvers only.
Great idea! Perhaps the first docking modules could be sized so that they fit in an F9 fairing. They might just have two ports. Later “cube” modules could have up to 6 ports, as you described, and be placed in LEO using a Starship variant with the “clamshell” cargo door that SpaceX has shown in renders. Though at that point the precise maneuvering required to dock/undock so close to other ships would be tricky if the ships had extended solar panel arrays.
Of course the first step is just to place one ship in LEO, verify it can function as intended, and then perfect in-orbit prop transfer. Joining multiple ships is a whole other level of complexity.
Not convinced it would be a good idea to do prop transfers through the nose of Starship right next to the passageway for crew.
Mike1080i
Member
Skylab was a actually a Saturn V S-IVB third stage.
Skylab was made from a converted S-IVB which was used as a Atlas V third stage or IB second stage.
S-IVB - Wikipedia
Would be really interesting if they added hatches to the methane fuel tank(s) to convert Starship in-orbit.
Armageddon with welders instead of oil rig workers.
Mike1080i
Member
Now I'll correct myself. Although it did fly on a Saturn V first and second stage, Skylab was a 200 Series S-IVB that was intended to fly on a Saturn IB.Skylab was a actually a Saturn V S-IVB third stage.
The Backup Skylab B is a 500 series that was built for a Saturn V stack. It's the one on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
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The Chinese space station, Tiangong, has such a ”hub” central docking module. See this recently released video
It’s really impressive what the Chinese have built in a relatively short time.
Back to Starship, I wonder what the useful lifespan in orbit would be (assuming no meteorite or space debris induced punctures) of the stainless steel alloy used for the hull?
And speaking of hull failures due to impacts, one issue with using Starship as a station would be that the interior cargo/crew volume would have to be subdivided into multiple pressure tight sections so that one could be closed off rapidly if the hull was compromised.
Which leads me to wonder about the optimal ship orientation in orbit for minimizing the probability of hull failure due to impact; nose first with extra plating on the nose? It seems like a sideways orientation would be the worst.
The issue of space debris in LEO is only going to get worse. Maybe a Starship station should orbit above LEO?
Thanks to you and @mongo for extra detail on this... I had remembered it being a repurposed rocket stage, but think I typed Atlas when I was thinking Saturn.
In any case, it illustrates that this is a direction NASA has gone before... and reasonably successfully.
If you google "Spinning Starships", you'll see a bunch of images for ideas about how to provide gravity on such a station. Here's an interesting one that has the Starship transforming. It apparently has a heavy section close to the centerline of the ship and a smaller section farther out that I assume is where the crew would live when not working in zero gravity.
I'd be more inclined to go with two contrarotating versions of that so that there is no net torque. Otherwise you expend propellant to get the rotating section up to speed.
Here's another one with matched habitation sections. Again, I'd go with contrarotating pairs unless there's a simpler way to make this work.
These each look like they would require a pretty seriously-stretched Starship.
In truth, I'd rather see something lofted separately and assembled in space where the floor of the habitation section is the same radius as the arms. The pictured sections wouldn't use the available space very well.
Here's a calculator that lets you fool around with various spinning gravity scenarios. The images shown seem to use a radius of about 100 feet, which would allow for 0.5g at 3.8 rpm while being at a questionable comfort level. Interestingly, it says the same thing about 1.0g at 5.4 rpm. Not that I think we'd need 1.0g as that would require beefier structures both in tension and compression..
Then there's the whole thing about possible physics working against this. Will constructs like these have a problem with the Dzhanibekov effect (the tennis racket theorem)? Perhaps another reason to consider contrarotating arms.
I look forward to future science missions that are dedicated to figuring all this out.
I'd be more inclined to go with two contrarotating versions of that so that there is no net torque. Otherwise you expend propellant to get the rotating section up to speed.
Here's another one with matched habitation sections. Again, I'd go with contrarotating pairs unless there's a simpler way to make this work.
These each look like they would require a pretty seriously-stretched Starship.
In truth, I'd rather see something lofted separately and assembled in space where the floor of the habitation section is the same radius as the arms. The pictured sections wouldn't use the available space very well.
Here's a calculator that lets you fool around with various spinning gravity scenarios. The images shown seem to use a radius of about 100 feet, which would allow for 0.5g at 3.8 rpm while being at a questionable comfort level. Interestingly, it says the same thing about 1.0g at 5.4 rpm. Not that I think we'd need 1.0g as that would require beefier structures both in tension and compression..
Then there's the whole thing about possible physics working against this. Will constructs like these have a problem with the Dzhanibekov effect (the tennis racket theorem)? Perhaps another reason to consider contrarotating arms.
I look forward to future science missions that are dedicated to figuring all this out.
Watts_Up
Well-Known Member
The rending picture to make it more realistic needs to have some solar panels added to the Starship Station
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